Eurocontrol (Hansard, 15 December 1980)

§ Mr. Tebbit

At the meeting of the Permanent Commission of Eurocontrol, the European organisation for the safety of air navigation on 20 November I took the chair, and my hon. Friend the Under-Secretry of State for Defence for the Royal Air Force led the United Kingdom delegation.

The Permanent Commission approved the five year plan for Eurocontrol, the investment and operating budgets, long-term costings, and a new agreement on route charges (in which non-member States may participate). It also took an important decision about the future role and activities of the organisation, by approving a draft protocol amending the Eurocontrol international convention of 1960. This amending protocol is to be signed at a diplomatic conference early next year and, subject to ratification by the member States, will come into force on 1 March 1983.

The arrangements embodied in the protocol are the result of several years' intensive study to define the role of Eurocontrol after 1983 when the initial 20 year term of the 1960 convention is due to end. The Permanent Commission concluded that the basic concept of the original convention, the horizontal division of member States' airspace was no longer justifiable in operational, technical, or financial terms. The Permanent Commission 19W also took into account the desirability of extending the present membership to include other European States, of simplifying the extremely complex communal finance system, of balancing the competing demands of all airspaces users, civil and military, the economic importance of air traffic services, and the need for a flexible response to new demands and technical developments.

Accordingly, the amended convention will extend Eurocontrol's responsibilities for the co-ordination of air traffic control planning to cover the whole airspace, with co-ordinated research and development, and common training policies. Eurocontrol will in future play a key role in developing and operating a European system of flow management. The complex communal financing of operational facilities will be progressively wound up. Air traffic control in the upper airspace will become the formal responsibility of member States, though they will be able, singly or jointly, to entrust the task to Eurocontrol. In practice this change is one of form only since most upper airspace facilities have always been operated by national Administrations.

I am satisfied that under the amended convention the combined efforts of member States, exerted through Eurocontrol, will provide the best guarantee that safety and efficiency will remain the prime objectives of the European air traffic control system.